Sleeper hold

WARNING: Do not do this. The following procedure is dangerous and holds the potential to cause permanent brain damage or death if performed incorrectly. Please seek professional training.

A sleeper hold is a martial arts move which allows one to very quickly neutralize an opponent without bodily harm. A sleeper hold when performed correctly is probably the safest and fastest way to render an opponent unconcious, even an opponent under the influence of drugs or with a high pain tolerance.

A sleeper hold causes unconciousness by interrupting the flow of blood to the brain through the cartoid arteries, located on the side of the neck. You can find the cartoid arteries on most people directly below the ear, usually near the height of the Adam's apple. The cartoid arteries are often used to take your pulse.

HOW TO APPLY A SLEEPER HOLD

Get behind your opponent. How you get there is up to you.

Wrap your right arm around the neck of your opponent, pressing your bicep against the right side of the neck and the inner bone of your forearm against the left. SQUEEZE HARD. (we will use the right arm for this example, but the directions work just as well reversed)

To apply further pressure, grab your left bicep near the elbow with your right hand, and use your left hand to press your opponent's head towards the crook of your right elbow.

You should try to take your opponent to the ground during this process. This helps to avoid various self-defense moves designed to protect against assault from the rear, such as shin stomps, instep stomps, and groin strikes.

When you feel your opponent go limp, usually in 5-10 seconds, immediately release pressure, but do NOT take your arms out of position. Holding pressure longer can eventually cause brain damage. The amount of time your opponent remains unconcious will be different for each person, but it can be anywhere from a few minutes to a few seconds. Leaving your arms in position will allow you to reapply pressure if your opponent was faking unconciousness or regains conciousness quickly.

You have just applied a sleeper hold!

Keep in mind that just because you can render your opponent unconcious, doesn't mean that you should or need to. As you apply the sleeper hold, your opponent will start to feel dizzy and their vision will blur. This is a very scary feeling, and may be all that is required to end certain conflicts.

eventually, your opponent will come back to life, as no one has submitted to the sleeper hold in years. Usually, your opponent will slump down, and the ref will come to check on him to see if he's still conscious. He'll raise his arms, it'll drop when he let's go. The ref will raise your opponent's arm again, and again it'll drop. But on the third try, the arm just barely stays up, signaling that your opponent is now going to start kicking your ass

The manner with which the arms are wrapped around the head doesn't seem to matter much, as it seems to be different every time. What's important is to make it look as if your arms are compressing the carotid artery.

Which brings us to the legitimate version of a sleeper hold, in which you actually press hard enough to cut off the blood circulation to the brain. This actually works, and there was a somewhat famous occasion where a professional wrestler applied the 'real' version to a talk host that was doubting the 'reality' of professional wrestling...
misuba says re Sleeper hold: the talk show host was Richard Belzer and the show was Hot Properties on Lifetime before Lifetime became the women's network. I believe it was Hulk Hogan who did the deed although it could have been randy savage. (why do i know this?)